


A More Joyous End

by bobbiewickham



Series: Less Miserable [4]
Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham
Summary: Fantine and Zéphine confront their boyfriends.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to genarti for looking this over!

In the diligence, chasing after the men suddenly seemed like a much less brilliant idea to Fantine.

After all, it was-- _chasing_. After men. Good girls didn’t chase men, did they? Not even if they had loved those men. Not even if those men were unkind, and dishonest, and had abandoned them after a cruel joke.

She glanced at Zéphine, seated beside her. Zéphine’s cheeks were flushed, her midnight hair tumbled in disorder around her shoulders, and her chin high. She was staring straight ahead, looking for all the world like she was going off to war. Not that Fantine knew what that looked like, but this was how she imagined it would look. There was even the trace of a fierce smile on Zéphine’s lips, as if Zéphine was plotting her attack and enjoying it.

Attack. What a foolish idea. What would she do, scream at Tholomyès? She couldn’t. She still loved him, didn’t she? They should never have come.

She looked again at Zéphine, though, sitting straight and tall, and could not bring herself to regret it.

The diligence drew up at an inn Fantine did not recognize. Zéphine sprang out, calling, “Come on!” to Fantine over her shoulder.

Fantine had no idea if this was the right inn, or if Zéphine had any idea where she was going. But she rushed after Zéphine towards the inn’s door, feeling vaguely that even if it was the wrong place, Zéphine might find a way to get herself into trouble without someone accompanying her. “Do you even know this place?” She hissed, as she followed Zéphine.

“Oh, yes,” Zéphine said, pushing open the heavy door. “It’s popular, with students. Fameuil brought me here once--” They entered a small dark foyer and, through it, the inn’s dining hall. “--and the diligence to Toulouse always stops here--”

She broke off. Right before their eyes were Tholomyès, Fameuil, Blachevelle, and Listolier, seated around a table, laughing their heads off. “A fine escape,” Blachevelle was saying, “a fine escape, fellows, we pulled it off splendidly.” He raised his mug. “To Tholomyès, for thinking up such a plan!”

“To Tholomyès,” Fameuil and Listolier echoed.

“To me!” Tholomyès cried, and stood up, knocking his chair over. He raised his mug with a sweeping, extravagant motion to toast himself.

Zéphine marched forward. Listolier was the first to see her. His eyes went wide, and he tried to stand up, but he was too drunk to manage it. He set his mug down heavily, and flailed with his other hand in her direction.

Tholomyès was too engrossed in toasting himself to see Listolier’s frantic gesturing. So he did not see Zéphine until her hand came up to smack the mug out of his hand. It clattered to the floor, spilling a dark trail of wine in its wake.

“I—you—we left a note,” he sputtered. It was then that he looked over her shoulder and saw Fantine.

He looked annoyed. Fantine could see no trace of regret or love on his face, just exasperation: at Zéphine, for knocking away his drink, and at Fantine, for continuing to exist in his presence once he was done with her.

All the pleas and entreaties she might have made, in the name of their love, vanished from her mind. “Cosette,” was all she said. “I— _we_ have a child. Cosette. Will you do nothing for her? We only need a little help, she and I. We won’t trouble you much, but won’t you help?”

Tholomyès’s face did not soften at the sound of their child’s name. His face didn’t change, at all. He still looked annoyed. He opened his mouth, and closed it without saying a word. Instead, he just shrugged his shoulders.

Fantine felt a surge of rage that seemed to swell from where she’d carried Cosette and where she’d nursed her, from the memory of every sleepless night and of Cosette’s very first babbled sounds. She felt like she was drowning. She could not think what to do, or to say.

Zéphine said it for her. “You coward,” she said, declaiming the words like they were lines in her play. “You vile, wretched thing, you--”

Tholomyès put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a hard shove. “Quiet, you stupid slut.” Zéphine raised her hand to push back, and he grabbed her wrist, twisting hard.

Before she knew what she was doing, Fantine had crossed the space between them in three long strides and struck Tholomyès full in the face.

Tholomyès shouted with pain, and reeled back. Applause rose up from the inn’s other tables, filled with patrons whom Fantine hadn’t even noticed. “You hit him again, girl,” came the loud, raspy voice of a woman who sounded very drunk.

Her hand was throbbing. Fantine raised it to look at it, and saw that it was already red and swollen. She had aimed for the soft part of his cheek, but he’d stumbled at the last moment, and she had struck his jaw.

“You’re hurt,” Zéphine said, from by her side.

“No, I--” She _was_ hurt, and might even have trouble sewing for a few days. “A little. But are you all right? Is your wrist--”

“It’s fine,” Zéphine said, her eyes gleeful in spite of everything that had happened. Fantine took her wrist, and saw that a bruise was beginning to form.

“What’s all this?” The innkeeper was there, suddenly, a bustling and authoritative presence that appeared out of nowhere.

Zéphine drew herself up. “These men attacked us,” she said. “They’re a very rough sort. Not the kind of patron you want for your inn.” She spoke with absolute confidence. Fantine looked at her with admiration, and even the innkeeper was shaken. But he still glanced over at the men, who were wearing obviously expensive clothes, and then back at Zéphine, who stood unruffled and immovable.

“It’s true,” Fantine said, forcing herself to speak loudly and clearly. “That man--” She pointed at Tholomyès. “He attacked my friend.”

The innkeeper nodded, but still looked suspicious. “What were you girls doing, before he attacked you?”

Tholomyès, who had straightened up and pulled himself together, opened his mouth to say something. Fantine braced for it, but he was stopped by a voice from behind his table. A very familiar voice. “Why, nothing at all,” said Bahorel, rising from his seat in a gleaming scarlet waistcoat. “The ladies are innocent, sir. This man was the instigator, the aggressor, the troublemaker, the serpent in your Edenic inn--”

“You,” growled Tholomyès, advancing on him.

“I,” agreed Bahorel, throwing a meaningful glance at Fantine and Zéphine.

The innkeeper’s attention was now fixed on the two men. “Messieurs, do nothing foolish. This is an inn, not a dueling ground--” He was cut off by the sounds of an overturned table; a scuffle had broken out between Listolier and a man from Bahorel’s table.

Fantine felt Zéphine tugging at her elbow. “Quick, before he thinks of blaming us again.”

Of course. Fantine felt foolish: this was a distraction, created by Bahorel. That was kind of him, although she suspected he welcomed the excuse to cross Tholomyès. She slipped out the door behind Zéphine, and pulled her into the first carriage they saw. “When do you leave?” Fantine asked the driver.

“Two minutes. You’re just in time,” he said, and hopped in front.

Zéphine gave an audible sigh of relief. “Good, then, we’ll be long gone before he even thinks of making us pay anything or calling the police. Bahorel’s a useful fellow, sometimes, even if he talks too much. But my poor Fantine, your hand! How will you work?”

“I suppose I won’t, for the next few days.” Her hand hadn’t gotten worse, and she didn’t think it was broken, but she would have to keep it cool and rest it until the swelling reduced. She would have to work twice as hard once she recovered.

Still, she did not wish to undo anything she’d done today.

“Then you must stay with me,” Zéphine declared and then added, more hesitantly, “if you want to, of course. You can bring Cosette and stay, and I can help look after her—I’m sure it’s difficult, with just one hand—and you’ll be able to rest better and get well faster.”

“Oh!” Fantine was startled, and then touched. It was kind of Zéphine, and—it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Staying with someone, instead of going back to her apartment alone, after all that had happened. The coach began to rattle away, amid the usual clouds of dust and sound of hooves. “Yes, thank you!” Fantine said over the noise. “You’re so sweet and good.”

They sat mostly in silence for most of the way back to Paris, occasionally looking at each other to exchange a smile, but both too weary to muster up the effort to speak over the horses and wheels.

This was not the homecoming Fantine had expected when they had set out from Paris that morning, four by four. But maybe, regardless of what had happened, it would not be a miserable one.


End file.
